COVID in Croatia
Jinushki Saluwadana - AS2018317
Republic of Croatia
Croatia(
listen), officially the Republic
of Croatia is a country at the crossroads of Central and
Southeast Europe on the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the
northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime
border with Italy to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest
city, Zagreb, forms one of the country’s primary subdivisions, with
twenty counties. Croatia has an area of 56,594 km2 (21,851
square miles) and a population of 4.07 million.
A sovereign state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a member of the European Union, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, and a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean. An active participant in United Nations peacekeeping, Croatia has contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force and took a non permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2008–2009 term. Since 2000, the Croatian government has invested in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors.
Croatia is classified by the World Bank as a high-income economy and ranks very high on the Human Development Index. Service, industrial sectors, and agriculture dominate the economy, respectively. Tourism is a significant source of revenue, with Croatia ranked among the 20 most popular tourist destinations. The state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatia’s most important trading partner. Croatia provides social security, universal health care, and tuition-free primary and secondary education while supporting culture through public institutions and corporate investments in media and publishing.
Tourism in Croatia
Tourism in Croatia is a major industry of country’s economy, accounting for almost 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) and is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, with a total of 19.6 million tourists visiting in 2019. It is concentrated in the areas along the Adriatic coast and is strongly seasonal, peaking in July and August. Eight areas in the country have been designated national parks, with an additional eleven as nature parks. Currently, there are ten sites in Croatia on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites.
Figure : Croatia’s Popular Tourist Destinations
Climate Condition
Two main climatic zones dominate Croatia.
The Pannonian and para-Pannonian plains and the mountain regions are characterized by a continental climate of warm summers and cold winters. In the plains, temperatures average in the low 70s F (low 20s C) in June and in the low 30s F (around 0 °C) in January—although they can range from a low of −5 °F (−20 °C) in the winter to a high of 105 °F (40 °C) in the summer. The central mountain regions of Lika and Krbava have slightly cooler summers and cold winters, with a milder climate in the valleys. The average temperature range is between about 65 °F (about 18 °C) in June and the upper 20s F (about −2 °C) in January. Considerable rainfall, turning to snow in winter, is characteristic of the region.
The Dalmatian coast, Istria, and the islands have a mild Mediterranean climate. In southern Dalmatia, where the sirocco winds (known there as the jugo) bring a moderating influence from Africa, summers are sunny, warm, and dry, and winters are rainy. In the north the winters are drier and colder as a result of the cold northeast wind known as the bora (bura). In the summer the mistral wind has a cooling effect on the coast and the islands. The average temperature ranges from the low 40s F (about 5 °C) in January to the low 70s F (low 20s C) in June. Rainfall is moderate and occurs mainly in the winter.
Lockdown Status
The COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first case in the Republic of Croatia was reported in Zagreb on 25 February, when a patient who had come from Italy was tested positive. On the same day, the second case related to the first one was confirmed. In March 2020, a cluster of cases were reported in numerous Croatian cities. On 12 March, the first recovery was reported, and on 18 March, the first death from the virus was confirmed.
The pandemic in Croatia occurred during the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. On 22 March 2020, Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, was hit by the strongest earthquake in 140 years, causing problems in the enforcement of social distancing measures set out by the Croatian government, as the country engaged in a period of lockdown in the later part of the first half of 2020. On 5 July 2020, a parliamentary election was held in the country. On 16 May 2021, local elections were held in the country. In general, the country was mostly reopened during the 2020 summer tourist season.
Actions Taken by the Government
Concerns over the virus began as soon as it began its rapid rise in China and its effects on the international scale became clear. Concerns were raised about the increased probability of the virus entering Croatia because of the number of Chinese workers working on Pelješac Bridge. Some of the institutions in Croatia preemptively reacted to the potential threat.
The airports in Croatia were prepared and they started going through passive measures and being vigilant. The Ministry of Health warned those travelling to China to avoid sick people, animals, and markets, not to eat any raw or semi-cooked animals, and to wash their hands often and to notify their doctor of their plans to travel to China.
After relieving Milan Kujundžić from the position of Health Minister, on 31 January, Vili Beroš was confirmed as the new Health Minister by the Croatian Parliament. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković cited the coronavirus problem as one of the reasons for the change. Beroš held a meeting with the Ministry’s Crisis Headquarters on his first day regarding the coronavirus epidemic. On the same day, the Ministry announced the formation of a National Crisis Headquarters for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Croatian Public Health Institute introduced special health inspection measures on 2 February for persons arriving from China or had been in China recently. On 3 February, Beroš met with Stella Kyriakidou, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, and Janez Lenarčič, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, to discuss the situation with the coronavirus. Following a meeting with the EU health ministers on 13 February, Beroš said that the closure of EU borders is a possible measure.
Beroš adopted a decision to establish a quarantine unit at the Hospital for Infectious Diseases “Dr. Fran Mihaljević” in Zagreb on 21 February, for suspected or confirmed infected persons with coronavirus. A Croatian citizen who spent time on the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in that unit on the following day. He had no symptoms, but was placed in a 14-day quarantine as a precautionary measure. Plenković said that the Crisis Headquarters will meet on a daily basis and that the Government will take any measure necessary to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Exploratory Data Analysis
This study is based on secondary data collected from the ‘coronavirus’ package which is easily available as an installable package in RStudio. The source of this data is Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CCSE) Coronavirus. The dataset consists of 1818 observations of daily summary of coronavirus cases worldwide continuously for a total period of over 1 1/2 years from 22nd January 2020 to 18th September 2021. The variables considered in the study are date of the observation, province of the case identified, latitude of the geographic region, longitude of the geographic region, type of the case (confirmed, death or recovered) and number of the cases on the given date. All the computations have been performed mainly using the statistical programming language R.
Corona virus pandemic is a global health crisis of our time which has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Therefore, it is beneficial to analyze data of each country to derive meaningful information. This study is conducted for Croatia and following outputs give a summary to the coronavirus situation in Croatia.
## date province country lat
## Min. :2020-01-22 Length:1818 Length:1818 Min. :45.1
## 1st Qu.:2020-06-21 Class :character Class :character 1st Qu.:45.1
## Median :2020-11-19 Mode :character Mode :character Median :45.1
## Mean :2020-11-19 Mean :45.1
## 3rd Qu.:2021-04-20 3rd Qu.:45.1
## Max. :2021-09-18 Max. :45.1
##
## long type cases
## Min. :15.2 Length:1818 Min. : 0.0
## 1st Qu.:15.2 Class :character 1st Qu.: 3.0
## Median :15.2 Mode :character Median : 50.0
## Mean :15.2 Mean : 425.5
## 3rd Qu.:15.2 3rd Qu.: 358.0
## Max. :15.2 Max. :4620.0
## NA's :45## 'data.frame': 1818 obs. of 7 variables:
## $ date : Date, format: "2020-01-22" "2020-01-23" ...
## $ province: chr NA NA NA NA ...
## $ country : chr "Croatia" "Croatia" "Croatia" "Croatia" ...
## $ lat : num 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 45.1 ...
## $ long : num 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 15.2 ...
## $ type : chr "confirmed" "confirmed" "confirmed" "confirmed" ...
## $ cases : int 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...The above figure shows the distribution of active covid cases across counties in Croatia. It can be observed that “Grad Zagreb” records the highest number of active cases so far.
Overall Picture
Overall Croatia has a poor performance in keeping the fatality rate low as it records a rate of 2.17% which is higher than the global death rate of 2.04%. But it has ensured a recovered rate more than 90%, however the active amount is still staggeringly high.
The data presented in the analysis are valid only up to the date of September 18th. The current situation might be quite different from what is depicted below.
| Type | Total Cases | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmed | 391109 | 100% |
| Recovered | 354830 | 90.72% |
| Death | 8493 | 2.17% |
| Active | 27786 | 7.11% |
The above figure shows the distribution of daily cases in each type. It can be seen that most of the confirmed cases are in between 0-1500 per day while recovered cases are in between 0-1000 reported so far. Number of death cases per day is still in a lower rate comparing to confirmed and recovered cases.
The above information can be further understood through the graphical presentation of the distribution of COVID-19 cases with respect to the time as shown above. A remarkable observation that can be gleaned from this graph is the spikes that can of confirmed and recovered cases during the time periods from October 2020 to February 2021 and from March 2021 to June 2021. These are considered as 2 major covid waves that affected Croatia and a rise in confirmed cases can be identified from September 2021 as well which brings forward to our observation of another wave.
Also it brings to our observation that the covid cases experienced in 2021 are not much worse than the covid situation experienced in the end of the 2020 year.
As given in the above figure, number of active cases reported within a day was very low until September 2021 but it has during the waves identified above.
During the 1st wave, the rate of the increase in death cases has been identified as very high rather than in the second wave. From June 2021, again the death curve has started flattening.
Comparison with other countries
Being a country surrounded by many countries and also active in foreign interactions, it is important to have an idea about the covid situation of the neighborhood. It is also by experience we know that the neighboring countries have a significant impact on the covid situation of a particular country. Therefore, comparing with neighbor countries is identified as important to identify any risks of the pandemic.
The following figure shows the comparison of confirmed cases of Croatia with its neighbor countries which are Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia.
This shows that Hungary and Serbia have higher confirmed cases than Croatia and the recent threat is identified from Serbia as it shows spikes during the past couple of months.
The following figure compares Croatia’s situation with top tourism countries in the world which are also in EU. This comparison was done to analyze the covid situation of countries that mostly survive from tourism like Croatia.
It can be seen that Germany and Spain are still suffering from covid cases rather than Croatia and also we can see that top tourism countries have a significant effect during the Covid period.
Conclusion and Discussion
Overall the Croatian government is having the situation under control, however careful attention should be paid towards the upcoming spikes as they are showing indicators of bringing more confirmed cases in the future. Also having an eye on Serbia and Hungary is also important with their rise in Covid cases recently. However with regards to other tourism countries as mentioned earlier, Croatia is doing well, even with many obstacles in their way.